Cockney Dialect On The Air

Northern Advocate, 28 May 1940, Page 10

Cockney Dialect On The Air

The 8.8. C. is going through a “change of voice.” says the Bristol correspondent of a United States paper’.

So if you hear a cockney accent—instead of the familiar Oxford intonations —on a British Broadcasting Corporation programme, it will be really quite, quite all right. Perhaps it is the 8.8.C.’s evacuation from the stately purlieus of Portland Place, London, W. 1., to the west country breeziness of Bristol that has brought the change. At any rate, the broad cockney idiom is being introduced into broadcasts for the fighting forces. Thus local dialects are at last competing with what has long been known as “8.8. C. English.” Speakers Learned Pattern

The corporation has, for many years, had a special college for announcers, presided ever by a foremost speech expert, with the sole duty of turning out official speakers to an official pattern. Its experience in this respect lias led to the acceptance by the nation’s lingual experts of 8.8. C. hand-books and standard works on the correct proaunciation of the English language. English radiated by the 8.8. C. has always been the English of wearers of

"the Old School Tie” (meaning the wealthier classes), despite the factor because of it. if the 8.8. C. is looked upon as an * educational institution—that many listeners never wear a tie :t all, preferring the muffler which wears better and obviates the affectation of a collar. Change Is Praised Experiments outside the range of official speakers have had shattering results. The voice of Mr Bob Bowman, Canadian commentator, brought into a programme experimentally one day, was vital enough to cause several thousand listeners to write in by the next post, rejoicing that somebody without a schooled accent had been allowed to commentate over the British network. Under its new policy of greater linguistic freedom the 8.8. C. is not' shelving entirely its “standard English” pretensions. At present, the plan seems to be to encourage a kind of bi-lingualism. Listeners from school children upwards in age are to be encouraged to speak and understand two accents, their ov/n natural- tongue and standard 8.8. C. underwritten by Prof. A. Lloyd James, linguistic expert. This is generally voted a reasonable proposition, since it is said a Yorkshire farmer and a Cornish fisherman cannot understand each other, unless they talk in French. <; If they know any French,